Congratulations to Patrice Lawrence, who has just been announced as the 14th Waterstones Children’s Laureate. In this exclusive blog, Patrice reflects on the books that have informed her writing and reading journey and gives a tantalising glimpse of her ambitions for her tenure in the pivotal role.
Books have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. It’s a privilege to be given such a life-changing role as the Children’s Laureate. It’s a testimony to all the people who plied childhood me with the books that prompted me to see my potential. I hope this is a gift I can pass on to children and young people, especially those who feel that they are less valued in society.
I was taught to read before I started school and was inducted into the local library long before I can remember. But the choice of children’s books when I was growing up was limited. If you weren’t into Enid Blyton, you were stuck! As well as Blyton, I ploughed through Arthur Ransomes, P.L. Travers(es) and a couple of C.S. Lewis Narnias. I’m pretty sure an occasional Nancy Drew mystery was propped up on my bedside table too.
I’m often asked if I’d wanted to see Black children like myself in books. In my first few years of independent reading, I longed for it with all my heart. But gradually, I’d presumed that we weren’t welcome in those pages. (This was a time when hairdressers would tell me that they couldn’t ‘do’ my type of hair and many mainstream TV comedy programmes embraced unpleasant stereotypes and tropes.) Many books reinforced those negative views even while I immersed myself in the adventures.
A book that had a profound effect on me was The Lord of the Rings. (Does this count as one book or three?) We had many books at home, but Haywards Heath library had different books, including Tolkiens. I’d discovered The Hobbit in my primary school library. Like Bilbo, I was ready for the next adventure – but I had to wait for whoever was already reading The Lord of the Rings to return it. It was gut-wrenchingly frustrating. The day The Fellowship of the Ring reappeared in the library was so momentous that I recorded it in my teenage diary.
The Tolkien trilogy astounded. How can such intricate worlds be created from words? How can I truly believe that elves, orcs and hobbits exist? How can people considered inconsequential and unimportant save the day?
I was a story-writer from childhood but I’d absorbed damaging stereotypes so thoroughly that every character I created was white. When I became a parent, I almost continued the cycle of buying children’s books that didn’t reflect my multi-ethnic, multi-family experience. That is until my baby returned from routine vaccinations with a Bookstart bag of goodies. These included Helen Oxenbury board books jammed with babies of all different ethnic backgrounds. Was this actually allowed? Thanks to Clap Hands and Say Goodnight, I found the picture book So Much, written by Trish Cooke and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. A baby and mother are waiting and watching by the window. Family members arrive. It’s finally revealed that they’ve organised a surprise party for the father whose post-work grumpiness commutes to joy at all the love coming his way.
Why had no one told me about this book before? (Because everyone I mentioned it to already knew about it!) For me, a woman in her 30s, reading a readily available book about a joyful Black British family to my child, was transformational. Books were for all children and about all children.
I became passionate about social justice through my career in the charity sector. I met many people who felt undervalued or ignored. Their influence threaded through my own books.
My dyslexia-friendly novella, Needle, arose out of an advisory group supporting an anti-racist guide for lawyers. This was around 2020/2021, when there were many intense and difficult conversations about the value of Black lives in western society. Fifteen-year-old knitter, Charlene, is frightened and grieving, separated from her younger sister, fostered by a woman she’s grudgingly come to trust. She is angry and makes questionable judgements – but she is also a child trying to survive in a challenging world where decisions are made about her that she can’t control.
I’m so grateful to the librarians and teachers in the UK and overseas that championed Needle. My book raises questions about how we, as adults, listen to and nurture vulnerable children. My aim for my tenure as Laureate is to ask these questions – how can books restore the humanity to people whose lives are considered unimportant in our society? How can books make us listen to and understand each other?
Answers coming soon!
